Pre-Alpha is close, I can feel it! Race/Class combos have been finalized and I would have to believe VR is finishing up connecting the last few zones to make a test-worthy environment possible. It has been mentioned that certain people will be assigned to testing certain elements of the game, and man does that give me a hope for a truly efficient testing program. Exciting stuff is coming and I'm just as excited as the rest of you.
As pre-alpha kicks off, the amount of bugs and unforeseen hiccups will surely ramp up, and that initial hit is going to be a heavy load on the developers. So, I have an idea and would like to get everyone's thoughts.
How does everyone feel about a live crowdfunding event on a Friday or Saturday evening once Pre-Alpha starts? This idea wouldn't be for adding more people to Pre-Alpha or even Alpha (madness I know), but a more realistic crowd funding event that gives VR some additional resources for development. The return to those who invest during this live event could be some in-game items or something that could be implemented without too much stress on the development team. One night stretch goals basically.
This could be a small team of VR employees on Twitch, hosting the live event and announcing stretch #s. Maybe boost interest on Reddit and Twitter for a week before hand. If VR raised enough in this event or multiple events, to hire more internal help for addressing the bugs found in pre-alpha, we could all benefit from a potentially faster track to future testing phases. In addition, to all of this, you'd be greatly satisfying the community by showing your team interacting on the live testing server with some of our VIP backer friends that we know here on the forums. Entice people with the promise of new information, whether it be a minor class announcement or something more major, it would draw a crowd. I can guarantee I would be there and ready to contribute!
I believe the way they have it set up is Pre Alpha will be pure testing, so really would not have the time for "streaming". I am glad they are taking this hard test aproach and not allowing any early public viewing. Leaves no room for people to criticize such an early state of the game. I hope strict NDA and testing goes well into Beta. but that's just my 2cents
Pre-alpha will be under strict NDA with no streaming and as much as I really appreciate this idea, we have our own team working on finances etc.
Testing will be strictly testing, especially pre-alpha which is an important step in the process for us to get help to set up a larger alpha testing phase, so the pre-alpha testers will be critical in helping us stress the servers, finding bugs, exploits etc. there won't be much time for anything else ;)
Kelem said:I believe the way they have it set up is Pre Alpha will be pure testing, so really would not have the time for "streaming". I am glad they are taking this hard test aproach and not allowing any early public viewing. Leaves no room for people to criticize such an early state of the game. I hope strict NDA and testing goes well into Beta. but that's just my 2cents
Yes, exactly.. So many people get early access games and then blow up Steam and other forums about how crappy the game is because it's not finished. Well, yeah! It's NOT finished. Doesn't matter how many warnings you put on an early access game about this people will still buy it expecting a game thats bug free and complete. So, I believe Pantheon is doing this the smart way by making a strict NDA and keeping it on lock and key until they are ready for people to know more. Bad Press is very damaging I witnessed it first hand playing Landmark. People who are more reserved with their wallet usually wait for the reviews to hit and if they are bad then a game company starts loosing potential customers, it has a cascading effect.
Unfortunately, over the last few years :
Open-Beta = soft-release with lots of lovely bugs, 'Chinglish' names and no wipe ...
Closed-Beta = Early Access with free 'working as intended' bugs and gold-farming ...
Alpha = PR exercise where everyone runs about streaming the game live for $$$
Pre-Alpha = Translating 50% of the game into 'Engrish' and cut/paste your logo
Thankfully, Pantheon is using a professional approach! *
Release = Actual Release **
Open-Beta = Server Stress-Testing of 'all-but-finished' game
Closed-Beta = Actual testing and polishing/tweaking under NDA
Alpha = Actual focused testing under NDA
Pre-Alpha = Actual testing under NDA ***
Suspect this may provide a better game :)
* This is somewhat speculative information, based on bugging Kilsin's pet Koala. The bugging of Monty's cat proved unsuccesful as it ate the bug :( Cats!, am I right?
** Brad reserves the right to 3 days early access for Aradune to ensure he survives the inevitable trains coming his way!
*** Testing of dynamic weather will require all testers to make 'Snow Angels'. Don't eat the yellow snow near the Ogre Hometown!
Evoras said:Thankfully, Pantheon is using a professional approach! *
Release = Actual Release **
Open-Beta = Server Stress-Testing of 'all-but-finished' game
Closed-Beta = Actual testing and polishing/tweaking under NDA
Alpha = Actual focused testing under NDA
Pre-Alpha = Actual testing under NDA ***
Hopefully you are wrong here. I'd like to not see an open beta at all. Maybe the last 2 weeks of CBT they remove the NDA and allow us to stream gameplay so people can see but open beta is a waste apart from stress testing the servers. Which there should not be a need for by the end of beta
Kilsin said:Pre-alpha will be under strict NDA with no streaming and as much as I really appreciate this idea, we have our own team working on finances etc.
Testing will be strictly testing, especially pre-alpha which is an important step in the process for us to get help to set up a larger alpha testing phase, so the pre-alpha testers will be critical in helping us stress the servers, finding bugs, exploits etc. there won't be much time for anything else ;)
I may have worded some parts poorly originally, so just to clarify, there will be no more state of the game streams from the dev team like we saw in December, once Pre-Alpha hits?
malist said:Kilsin said:Pre-alpha will be under strict NDA with no streaming and as much as I really appreciate this idea, we have our own team working on finances etc.
Testing will be strictly testing, especially pre-alpha which is an important step in the process for us to get help to set up a larger alpha testing phase, so the pre-alpha testers will be critical in helping us stress the servers, finding bugs, exploits etc. there won't be much time for anything else ;)I may have worded some parts poorly originally, so just to clarify, there will be no more state of the game streams from the dev team like we saw in December, once Pre-Alpha hits?
We have another one planned soon but past that I am not sure, we are very busy trying to get the game ready for pre-alpha and once that hits, it will be even more busy for us, so we may not do any streams and videos and just concentrate on our testing phases and the testers helping us who can see the game first hand ;)
Gamerchick said:Kelem said:I believe the way they have it set up is Pre Alpha will be pure testing, so really would not have the time for "streaming". I am glad they are taking this hard test aproach and not allowing any early public viewing. Leaves no room for people to criticize such an early state of the game. I hope strict NDA and testing goes well into Beta. but that's just my 2cents
Yes, exactly.. So many people get early access games and then blow up Steam and other forums about how crappy the game is because it's not finished. Well, yeah! It's NOT finished. Doesn't matter how many warnings you put on an early access game about this people will still buy it expecting a game thats bug free and complete. So, I believe Pantheon is doing this the smart way by making a strict NDA and keeping it on lock and key until they are ready for people to know more. Bad Press is very damaging I witnessed it first hand playing Landmark. People who are more reserved with their wallet usually wait for the reviews to hit and if they are bad then a game company starts loosing potential customers, it has a cascading effect.
The one exclamation I love is some person yelling about "This game is buggy!" I have to say over the years, that I haven't yet seen a game with NO BUGS. Par for the course, programs etc are only as good as the programmers....programmers are humans, humans aren't perfect. There's my equation for the day lol.